She wants to ask
but fears a stranger’s ridicule.
A boldfaced truth
rarely dominates
the way those lying bastards
in the center aisle do.

She’s one. Became a bastard
by age 12. A marriage made null
and void. To ask why
bastardize a child
is to carry around
an irresistible urge to disappear

without a desire
for the cure.
She’s no angel.

It’s no longer about repairing
wings. An atheistic spirituality
wraps around her shoulders tightly
to brace her for another polar vortex.
That Coriolis force
will never change

the direction her words drain
through a basin
into the pipe that leaks
into the Lethe.
The rehabilitation will require
no feathers.